Western Pa Hockey Scholastic Showcase : Welcome

The Director's
Cup was founded in 1996 under the direction of the Western Pennsylvania Hockey
Coaches Association. The Tournament is now known as the Pa Hockey Scholastic
Showcase.

The goal of the Pa Hockey Scholastic Showcase is to bring
together the best Interscholastic Hockey teams in Western and now Eastern
Pennsylvania to compete for one championship. In 2003, the Pa Hockey Scholastic
Showcase will open its doors to Eastern Pennsylvania for the first time and to Schools across the United States and Canada in 2004.

The lore of the tournament goes back to 1996, when in one of the
usual after hour post-game coaches meetings, the Penn Hills coaching staff of
Tom Deery, Brian Errigo and Jerry 'Dr. Evil' Bass, and other coaches such as
Dennis Shannon [Gateway] and Ron Steedle [Shaler] along with administrative
gurus Al Lapiana, Paul Buckwalter and Mike Crespy came up with the idea of
having a tournament at mid-season with ONE champion.

Over the
years the stories of the Golden Mile as coaches feet would freeze to the rubber
mats on the benches or the failure of the Zamboni starting or the waiting in the
lobby as the tournament was behind schedule. Or it may have been the year
Westmont-Hilltop's locker room flooded creating chaos or Kenny Vance from
Canevin, a fixture at the event's early days, pitching to move the tournament so
his feet didn't freeze to the stands at the far end of the rink or when a scary
accident when Brian 'Brains' Errigo was struck with a puck by his own player and
carted off in the ambulance and thanks to some generous work by Dr. Hank Thel of
Beaver, who treated Brian and he returned to coach the next day. One of our
favorite stories of Jim 'Mort' McVay firing his clipboard across the ice after a
semi-final loss to Thomas Jefferson in overtime. The Showcase has survived and
now has moved to the Center Ice Arena and now has moved to the BladeRunners in Harmarville.

Great performances
remembered and although may not have won it it all need to be recognized. In
1996, the then 9th graders of J.B. Bittner, Louie Garritan and John Plack, who
led Seton LaSalle to three straight medal round appearances. Gateway's Matt
Kopaczynski's 4 consecutive Director's dozen as the tournament's top players
leading Gateway to 3 Medal Round appearances. Greg Timmons and Jim McVay, in
leading Canevin and Bethel Park to consecutive Director's Cup titles. And
possibly the most prolific was Mike Papciak's 2002 assault on the Scholastic
Showcase record books leading the Indians to a title. So many stories and some
more to come !!!

Sunday, January 15

Pa Hockey Scholastic Showcase History

The Pa
Hockey Scholastic Showcase was designed to gather the top teams in the A, AA,
and AAA classifications throughout Western Pennsylvania under one format to
compete for the Director’s Cup.
The tournament is divisional round robin
culminating in the Director’s Cup Gold Medal Championship. The proceeds from
this event provide the Annual Pa Hockey Yearbook for the interscholastic hockey
programs in Western Pennsylvania and the media outlets throughout the region,
including the Pa Hockey Website the resource for Interscholastic Hockey in the
State of Pennsylvania and throughout the USA.